ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Los Jardines Institute and NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) have filed a Title VI civil rights complaint urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require the City of Albuquerque and Albuquerque Environmental Health Department to start accounting for the cumulative impacts of pollution in lower-income communities of color in Bernalillo County when granting air pollution permits, and to reverse the long history of over-polluting those communities which has harmed the health of people living in them.
Federal intervention is necessary because local environmental justice communities first raised concerns a decade ago with EPA about the impacts from multiple sources of air pollution on public health in the county surrounding Albuquerque—and little has happened since. Furthermore, over the last six months, the City of Albuquerque and the…